The Prisoner of Zenda

by Anthony Hope
CONTENTS

1 The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs
2 Concerning the Colour of Men's Hair

3 A Merry Evening with a Distant Relative
4 The King Keeps his Appointment

5 The Adventures of an Understudy
6 The Secret of a Cellar

7 His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau
8 A Fair Cousin and a Dark Brother

9 A New Use for a Tea-Table
10 A Great Chance for a Villain

11 Hunting a Very Big Boar
12 I Receive a Visitor and Bait a Hook

13 An Improvement on Jacob's Ladder
14 A Night Outside the Castle

15 I Talk with a Tempter
16 A Desperate Plan

17 Young Rupert's Midnight Diversions
18 The Forcing of the Trap

19 Face to Face in the Forest
20 The Prisoner and the King

21 If Love Were All!
22 Present, Past--and Future?

The Prisoner of Zenda
by Anthony Hope

CHAPTER 1
The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs

"I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?"
said my brother's wife.

"My dear Rose," I answered, laying down my egg-spoon,
"why in the world should I do anything? My position is a

comfortable one. I have an income nearly sufficient for my
wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you know),

I enjoy an enviable social position: I am brother to
Lord Burlesdon, and brother-in-law to that charming lady,

his countess. Behold, it is enough!"
"You are nine-and-twenty," she observed, "and you've done

nothing but--"
"Knock about? It is true. Our family doesn't need to do things."

This remark of mine rather annoyed Rose, for everybody
knows (and therefore there can be no harm in referring to the

fact) that, pretty and accomplished as she herself is, her family
is hardly of the same standing as the Rassendylls. Besides her

attractions, she possessed a large fortune, and my brother
Robert was wise enough not to mind about her ancestry.

Ancestry is, in fact, a matter concerning which the next
observation of Rose's has some truth.

"Good families are generally worse than any others," she said.
Upon this I stroked my hair: I knew quite well what she meant.

"I'm so glad Robert's is black!" she cried.
At this moment Robert (who rises at seven and works before breakfast)

came in. He glanced at his wife: her cheek was slightly flushed;
he patted it caressingly.

"What's the matter, my dear?" he asked.
"She objects to my doing nothing and having red hair," said I,

in an injured tone.
"Oh! of course he can't help his hair," admitted Rose.

"It generally crops out once in a generation," said my brother.
"So does the nose. Rudolf has got them both."

"I wish they didn't crop out," said Rose, still flushed.
"I rather like them myself," said I, and, rising,

I bowed to the portrait of Countess Amelia.
My brother's wife uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"I wish you'd take that picture away, Robert," said she.
"My dear!" he cried.

"Good heavens!" I added.
"Then it might be forgotten," she continued.

"Hardly--with Rudolf about," said Robert, shaking his head.
"Why should it be forgotten?" I asked.

"Rudolf!" exclaimed my brother's wife, blushing very prettily.
I laughed, and went on with my egg. At least I had shelved

the question of what (if anything) I ought to do. And, by way of
closing the discussion--and also, I must admit, of exasperating

my strict little sister-in-law a trifle more--I observed:
"I rather like being an Elphberg myself."

When I read a story, I skip the explanations; yet the moment
I begin to write one, I find that I must have an explanation.

For it is manifest that I must explain why my sister-in-law was vexed
with my nose and hair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg.

For eminent as, I must protest, the Rassendylls have been for many generations,
yet participation in their blood of course does not, at first sight,

justify the boast of a connection with the grander stock of the Elphbergs
or a claim to be one of that Royal House. For what relationship is there

between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau
or the Castle of Zenda and Number 305 Park Lane, W.?

Well then--and I must premise that I am going, perforce, to
rake up the very scandal which my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes

forgotten--in the year 1733, George II sitting then on the
throne, peace reigning for the moment, and the King and the

Prince of Wales being not yet at loggerheads, there came on a
visit to the English Court a certain prince, who was afterwards

known to history as Rudolf the Third of Ruritania. The prince
was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked (maybe marred, it

is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long, sharp and
straight nose, and a mass of dark-red hair--in fact, the nose and

the hair which have stamped the Elphbergs time out of mind.
He stayed some months in England, where he was most

courteously received; yet, in the end, he left rather under a
cloud. For he fought a duel (it was considered highly well bred

of him to waive all question of his rank) with a nobleman, well
known in the society of the day, not only for his own merits, but

as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duel Prince
Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom,

was adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who
had found him a pretty handful. The nobleman was not

wounded in the duel; but the morning being raw and damp on
the occasion of the meeting, he contracted a severe chill, and,

failing to throw it off, he died some six months after the
departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to

adjust his relations with his wife--who, after another two
months, bore an heir to the title and estates of the family of

Burlesdon. This lady was the Countess Amelia, whose picture
my sister-in-law wished to remove from the drawing-room in

Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifth Earl of Burlesdon
and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in the peerage of

England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he went
back to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne,

whereon his progeny in the direct line have sat from then till
this very hour--with one short interval. And, finally, if you

walk through the picture galleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty
portraits or so of the last century and a half, you will find five

or six, including that of the sixth earl, distinguished by long,
sharp, straight noses and a quantity of dark-red hair; these five

or six have also blue eyes, whereas among the Rassendylls dark
eyes are the commoner.

That is the explanation, and I am glad to have finished it: